The New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) is pleased to announce the launch of PAT Tuhituhi Te Pihinga – a standardised, paper-based writing assessment for Years 3-4.
This assessment expands on the original PAT Tuhituhi for Years 5-10, and assesses ākonga writing in narrative, persuasive, explain or recount styles – which are then manually marked by teachers.
Assessment tasks are curriculum-aligned, and marking uses a new rubric (adapted from PAT Tuhituhi) that focuses on aspects of early writing development – including ideas, organisation, language choices, and spelling conventions.
"We know how important early writing development is, and are committed to providing reliable assessment tools across years 3-10 – on both counts, we are thrilled that PAT Tuhituhi Te Pihinga is now available for schools," states Ben Gardiner, Assessment Services Lead for NZCER.
"This assessment will give kaiako reliable information about younger students' writing, as well as the big picture story of their ongoing progress and achievement."
"More than 300,000 ākonga have used PATs this year, which shows the continued value schools place on PATs as a formative, low-stakes assessment tool. We will keep developing the PATs to make sure schools always have access to a diverse range of reliable assessments."
PAT Tuhituhi Te Pihinga is free for schools to use in Terms 2 and 3 of 2026. Head to NZCER Assist to get started, or contact our Assessment Services team for more information.